Julian Assange lives in his own little bit of Ecuador. For the past six months he has been confined to the country's London embassy where he has been granted political asylum.

He sought refuge in this building just a stone's throw from Harrods because he is at risk of extradition to the United States to face charges arising from WikiLeaks obtaining and releasing thousands of secret US military and diplomatic reports leaked by the US soldier Bradley Manning.

Inside the embassy, which is little more than a small apartment in the London suburb of Knightsbridge, the WikiLeaks founder spends his days in a small room of about 20 square metres. The furnishings are not luxurious: a conference table, a few chairs, a television, a notice board covered in post-it notes, a bookshelf, a bed, an exercise tread mill, a sun lamp, and of course, several laptops.

There is just one large window with heavy curtains preventing people from peering inside. There is no courtyard or other access to direct sunlight or fresh air.

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Assange shares a tiny kitchen with the Embassy staff, and said he has made good progress in learning Spanish.

There is no inclination to venture outside the embassy as British police are on guard 24 hours a day, waiting to arrest him so he can be extradited to Sweden to face questioning about allegations of sexual assault.

Assange remains convinced going to Sweden would result in his eventual extradition to the US, but he is also confident the Swedish police inquiry will be subject to review and eventually dropped. "The matters in Sweden are not serious," he said. "However, the US case, the grand jury espionage investigation, is a very serious matter.

''Getting the US investigation dropped; that is our number-one priority. Otherwise I'll be watching my back for the next 30 years."

Assange dismissed recent reports that he was suffering from significant health problems as a consequence of his confinement, saying he had "no pressing health issues".

However, prominent human rights barrister and Assange's former legal representative, Geoffrey Robertson, told ABC TV on Wednesday that after visiting him recently he thought Assange had "lost a bit of weight … [and] he could do with some sunlight".

Assange highlighted WikiLeaks' efforts to "work around" the financial embargo imposed on the group by the big credit card companies and electronic funds transfer agencies during the past two years.

He said the refusal of Visa, MasterCard, American Express and other companies to process direct donations amounted to an "extraterritorial, extrajudicial financial death penalty" that had robbed WikiLeaks of 95 per cent of the revenue stream it had enjoyed in late 2010.

However, Assange said that about 40 per cent WikiLeaks' funding still came from the United States despite the hostility of the US government.

"We're fighting back, we've had some recent victories including in regard to tax deductibility for donations in the European Union," he said.

"We hope that new initiatives in the US will enable us to raise $1US million [$960,000] to cover our 2013 expenses."

This week a new US media advocacy group, the Freedom of the Press Foundation, announced it will process credit card donations to WikiLeaks, the long established National Security Archive and two other groups devoted to "journalism …dedicated to transparency and accountability''.

Assange was speaking before a planned public address from the balcony of the embassy on Thursday evening. He said he was confident that WikiLeaks' stocks were improving and talked about his planned run for a Senate seat in Australia's 2013 federal election.

"Australians have consistently been strong supporters of WikiLeaks, that's been shown both through generous donations and opinion polls," he said. ''Our trajectory over the past four months has been increasingly positive … In Australia our support base has continued to grow, our supporters have been more active. I hope that increasing organisational strength will flow into the election campaign."